Abu Yahya al-Libi is universally admired in jihadist circles and among the younger generation of al Qaeda leaders. Charismatic, intelligent, a religious scholar - and with the extra qualification of having escaped from U.S. custody in Afghanistan - his loss is "a cataclysmic blow" to al Qaeda, according to analysts who follow the group.

In recent years, al-Libi emerged as one of the terrorist network's most important clerics and propagandists, appearing in countless videos. By most accounts, he was effectively al Qaeda's deputy leader. And his Libyan nationality is important to an organization that after the elevation of Ayman al-Zawahiri as leader was vulnerable to criticism it was dominated by Egyptians.

Noman Benotman, a former senior member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) who spent significant time with al-Libi in the 1990s, told CNN that his death is a "very serious blow" to al Qaeda because no one else within the group rivals his legitimacy as a religious scholar nor has the credibility in the Arab world to provide Islamic justifications for al Qaeda's global campaign of terrorism.

"Awlaki wasn't even close," said Benotman, referring to Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a drone strike in Yemen last year.

Al-Libi (real name: Hasan Muhamad Qayed) was born in Marzaq in the southwest Sabha province deep inside Libya's interior. As a young man he studied chemistry for one year at Sabha University but, like many young Libyans, was swept up in an Islamic awakening hostile to the Gadhafi regime that arose in Libya in the late 1980s.

As an outlet for their frustration, and a chance to participate in Holy War, al-Libi and his brother, Abd al-Wahab al-Qayed (also subsequently known as Idris), were among the many young Libyans who traveled to Afghanistan to fight jihad against the Soviet-backed government. In 1990 his brother was one of the founding members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which fought a failed campaign to overthrow the rule of Moammar Gadhafi in the mid 1990s.

Benotman, who is now a senior analyst at the Quilliam Foundation in London, first spent time with al-Libi around 1990-1991 in Afghanistan. He recalls that al-Libi was always much more interested in religious learning than fighting.

"He was a very smart guy and hungry to learn about Sharia law," Benotman told CNN.

After a few years in Afghanistan, al-Libi traveled to Mauretania, where he undertook religious studies for two years under well-known scholars, according to Benotman. "He was the best student they had," Benotman said.

Benotman noticed the change in al-Libi when he returned to Afghanistan: "He was a real and serious Sharia student." In the mid-1990s al-Libi moved to Sudan with other LIFG fighters after conditions for Arab fighters became difficult in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Separately, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda also relocated there. Benotman said that al-Libi took no operational role in the coordination of a insurgent campaign the group began against the Gadhafi in Libya around this time.

"He didn't have fighting skills or knowledge of military leadership," Benotman told CNN.

After the Taliban took over much of Afghanistan in 1996, al-Libi settled in Kabul, according to Benotman. Al-Libi's religious views leaned toward the extreme, said Benotman, but he did not subscribe to the ultra-hardline "takfiri" interpretation of Islam that argued for the permissibility of killing those regarded by some Sunnis as "heretical" Muslims - like the Shia.

In late 2001, al-Libi's world was turned upside down when the United States routed the Taliban in Afghanistan. Like many Arab fighters he fled across the border to Pakistan, where he holed up in an apartment block with other militants in Karachi, according to Benotman.

But a Pakistani raid in 2002 led to his arrest and he was quickly handed over to American authorities, who held him in a prison in Kandahar, according to Benotman. He was subsequently transferred to an American detention facility at Bagram air base near Kabul.

It was al-Libi's escape from the prison in July 2005 that shot him to jihadist stardom. His nighttime escape was featured in a subsequent jihadist propaganda video narrated by a fellow escapee, who claimed that as American soldiers patrolled it was al-Libi who cut a wire mesh fence, allowing them to escape and eventually connect with the Taliban fighters in Kabul.

Al-Libi himself appeared in the video in which he alleged the Americans were responsible for severe human rights violations, claiming that when a new prisoner arrived, he would be abused and humilated until "he almost loses his mind."

After some time in hiding in Afghanistan, al-Libi traveled to the tribal areas of Pakistan, which were increasingly becoming a new safe haven for Arab fighters and al Qaeda operatives. His views on jihad were increasingly in line with the terrorist group. In December 2006 he appeared in a video urging jihadists to learn how to make nuclear weapons.

Al-Libi became one of al Qaeda's chief ideologues and propagandists, appearing in numerous recruitment videos in which he cast himself as a sheikh with the legitimacy to issue fatwas.

His eloquent Arabic addresses, several of which were made to groups of fighters sitting crossed-legged outdoors in the tribal areas of Pakistan, were filmed and disseminated online, and won him a significant audience among a radical fringe of young Muslims in the Arab world.

Part of al-Libi's appeal to young Muslims radicalized by the Iraq war was his uncompromising ideology. But there were limits to his radicalism. According to Benotman he was concerned about the negative fallout of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's barbaric campaign in Iraq.

In 2008 al-Zawahiri cited a tract written by the Libyan to justify al Qaeda's campaign of terrorism. The tract was titled "Human Shields in Modern Jihad." According to Jarret Brachman, an American academic who has long studied al Qaeda, al-Libi argued that al Qaeda could take on the West only if it engaged "in a fierce war using weapons of mass destruction" and that this would entail Muslim casualties.

As drone strikes began to take their toll on al Qaeda in 2008, killing a number of senior leaders, al-Libi appeared to play a more hands-on military role in the organization despite his lack of combat experience.

Bryant Neal Vinas, a young American from Long Island who was recruited into al Qaeda, testified in a recent court case that during the late summer of 2008 he participated in an expedition to attack a U.S. base near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with a group of fighters under the command of al-Libi, whom he described as the "emir" of an al Qaeda outfit based in Lwara, Pakistan, near the Afghan border.

Benotman said that al-Libi's military role should not be exaggerated. "He's not a frontline fighter or someone very capable of military strategy," he told CNN.

Brachman and other counterterrorism analysts came to see al-Libi as a natural successor to bin Laden because of his charisma and religious credentials. In an interview with CNN in 2009, Benotman was sceptical al-Libi would be effective in the top job: "He lacks the management skills of a bin Laden; the ability to see the big picture and think strategically. Hardcore Salafists don't think practically because they believe God will help them through."

By the second half of 2010, as more senior al Qaeda operatives were killed or captured, al-Libi was thrust into a managerial role. But within the al Qaeda hierarchy he was still junior to another Libyan within the group.

Letters recovered from bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad suggest al-Libi developed a working relationship with Atiyah abd al-Rahman, who in mid-2010 took over al Qaeda's day-to-day operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan and became bin Laden's main interlocutor within the terrorist organization until al-Rahman's death in a drone strike in August 2011.

Al-Rahman was known as a strategic thinker but also a pragmatist. In December 2010 he and al-Libi wrote a joint letter to Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, to scold him for the group's indiscriminate killing of Muslim civilians and use of kidnapping, which they said was hurting the jihadist cause in Pakistan. A copy of the letter was subsequently found in Abbottabad.

After the death of al-Rahman, counterterrorism officials believe, al-Libi stepped into his shoes in managing the day-to-day operations of the terrorist network and its relations with affiliates.

Benotman says that like al-Rahman, al-Libi had significant influence with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al Qaeda's North African affiliate, and Al-Shabaab, the network's Somali affiliate. "They respect him, love him, and listen to him," Benotman told CNN. His loss might therefore damage al-Zawahiri's ability to coax the affiliates into following his strategic guidance.

After the onset of the Arab Spring in 2011, al-Libi took a lead role in al Qaeda's propaganda efforts to try to turn events to their advantage.
Benotman said that it is here and in his justification of al Qaeda's global campaign of attacks that his loss would be most keenly felt. The Libyan cleric was able to describe the stakes arising from the Arab uprising in religious terms more effectively than any other al Qaeda leader, according to Benotman.

Addressing Libyan followers in a wide-ranging video address in December 2011, al-Libi said, "At this crossroads you have found yourselves, you either choose a secular regime that pleases the greedy crocodiles of the West and for them to use it as a means to fulfill their goals, or you take a strong position and establish the religion of Allah."

With his death, it is possible there may be a backlash by pro al Qaeda forces in Libya. According to several sources, al Qaeda has developed a presence in eastern Libya, where it has recruited and trained several hundred fighters. Last month a previously unknown jihadist outfit calling itself the Imprisoned Omar Abdel Rahman Brigades claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on the Red Cross in Benghazi.

Al-Libi, in a video released late last year, claimed his own death would not hurt al Qaeda's cause:

"I say to America: Don't have hopes that you are about to defeat al Qaeda. Let al Qaeda be defeated and all their leaders and individuals be killed, and then what? The battle with America today is not with an organization or a group or a sect, but it is a battle with the Ummah of Islam," meaning the global Islamic community.

This topic is a waste of time. What's the big deal ? Christians in the US will talk the same rhetoric ivlnvoing proselytizing.This topic also has it's focus on Hezbollah of which is only a symptom of the problem, not the cause. If you want a solution, eliminate the problem (the cause) not a symptom (brought on by the cause).I'm all for the continued existence of Israel; and that Israel use whatever means to defend itself. In fact, if we were to stay out of this problem and remove ourselves completely from the Middle East most of the problem would be eliminated.Today, the problem is exacerbated by warhawk legacy seeking republicans who are as hypocritical on 'limited government' as their democratic opponents are on guns. Americans can't get it right. Both sides have an agenda that does not serve the Framer's intent: limited government and individual rights.In the next election I will suffer for my gun rights and gain (a little) on limited government. Because of Bush and his war folly republicans will loose control and dems will gain – there go my gun rights. Americans are so ass-backwards even I have a hard time explaining this. Both sides have their hands in the treasury, both sides insist on government doing something for them it was never designed or intended to do.Paradoxically no, hypocritically yes, republicans are on a religious crusade against another brand. Democrats (in a more criminal form) want to create dictatorship in the fashion of Adolf Hitler (while leading everyone to believe they are sensitive towards children).Religion is the part of the problem, but it is Believers that can get me my gun rights. But in the next election right wing religious nut jobs are going down; not because of their stance on guns, but because of their holy crusade into the holy Middle East.Both sides use our government for their selfish interests; one for their need to score points with the almighty, the other to nurture their phobia on guns and for more control over all of us.Holy crap, and I can't even reach for a gun to shield and protect myself from all this insanity.

Will al-Qaeda opt for a more relevant and in-touch type of leeadr like Abu Yahya? Or will they go for a supposedly safer and old guard style of thinking by choosing Ayman? Either way, it's possible they already have an immediate interim leeadr who will start taking the reigns secretly and then the official leeadr will take over. Thing is, as much as other jihadi groups (TTP, remaining ISI scraps) feel incensed now, how many of them will take orders from a new top dog? They just don't have the Bin Laden Effect of unassailable, time-proven mythological status in the field of Jihad. Ayman was always just an old nerd with 80s glasses and a sagging bookcase. He may have even sunk into a comfort zone being THE number 2 in Al-Qaeda. Time can do that to leeadrs. How close was Ayman anyway to the Pashtun jihadi mindset/militants? Bin Laden was far better connected.AQAP may not take over as the central, but they will be keen to assert themselves as model followers (inheritors?) of OBL's legacy. Al Qaeda badly needs a good, pet Arab wing again that is strong. AQI is used toilet paper.Thanks for the interesting updates!

"...can you give me one example where Christian group in the US that is ttihaeenrng to eliminate those who don't convert...[Lott] Bush is an Evangelist. Christian missionaries have always ignored reality and fact and placed their goal to convert above all else.The American threat is implied; but it is obvious. Why does Bush say we are in Iraq ? To spread freedom and democracy. It's not our business or place to do anything in Iraq. Bush invaded Iraq to convert Iraqis into democrats (and Christians.) He won't convet them into either. His strategy is to incite as much violence and bloodshed as possible; this will convince Iraqis their way of life isn't functional, then they'll convert. Consider all the Iraqis killed by this strategy.When Iraqis' learn the CIA is inciting one group to attack the other they'll never forget it. It will make Arabs hate the US more.And consider what this strategy does to freedom here: if democrats win a majority what may happen to gun rights? The best rhetoric, research and statistics don't convince anti-gun politicians to respect the 2nd amendment – the only thing that guarantees gun rights are republicans.Holy crusading in Africa (nature worshippers) is one thing, but attempting to convert Allah worshippers is totally different and impossible.

Now that we have annihilated the Al Qaeda and Talibans, it is time to focus on the terrorism in India against the Christians. The message to Indians should be that no extremism of any sort will be tolerated and that we will nip it in the bud. We need to start reprogramming the drones to move onto Goa and New Delhi where the hindu extremist groups are gaining momentum and Christians are being made the target of terror.

We spoilt pakistanis. With indians the message should be simple....when we say jump .. you jump and ask how high, senor. Otherwise we will pull the plug on ya and stop all aid we are giving to you. The way we americans look at indians is that we are the brahims and you are the dalits....get the message yogi..it is in your lingo?

you hit the nail on the head ... we want pakistan to grow ... we love there women which we get for free ...we can practice our drones for free

June 6, 2012 at 12:05 pm |

BulBul Khan Afghani

So the only way to peace in Afghanistan is dismantling the terrorist network and financing emanating from India, cutting it up into smaller nations along the lines of communist USSR and let smaller and more gentle and economically dynamic states emerge, stopping the genocide in Kashmir of muslim children/women, subjugation of minorities, prosecution of Christians and Muslims. Furthermore the ridiculously large and ineffective Indian army needs to be dismantled and put to use in assisting the poverty stricken masses and not sitting in trenches hiding from Talibans.

We are Hindus from India,
And we like to put on the Bindiya,
We are mostly Haris,
But we like to put on the Saris,
Sadly, we are nothing but Bhikaris,
Sadly, we are nothing but Bhikaris,
We take the Americans to Heart,
But get nothing in return except a F@rt,
So we tend to kiss the American @ss,
Again, we get nothing in return except the American gas,
We are nothing but Bhikaris and are Indians No Mas.

India’s GHI for 2011 was 23.7 lower than it was 15 years ago giving it a rank of 67. Pakistan, Nepal, Rwanda and Sudan did better than India while Bangladesh, Haiti and Democratic Republic of Congo were countries which are worse than India.

The Hindu Dharam Senain India has become especially terrifying for Christians in Jabalpur. Between 2006 and 2008, Jabalpur was plagued by at least three anti-Christian attacks every month, according to The Caravan magazine. In the western state of Gujarat and other parts of the country, the Rashtriya Jagran Manch has also violently attacked Christians, according to news website Counter Currents

As american i wana say .. Thanks India for all the jobs ..for putting food on our table...for taking care of ruthless Pakistanis ..for bringing smart Indian dr , scientist, spelling b champians, Indians are second to jews with most money in America as per Haider Murtaza a pakistani author from dawn ...

EAST OR WEST INDIA IS THE BEST ... india keep these hungry poor terrorist pakistanis online

According to the new measure called the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI) developed by UNDP acute poverty prevails in eight Indian states which includes Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. They account for more poor people than in the 26 poorest African nations combined.

HONOR KILLINGS IN INDIA
To be young and in love has proved fatal for many young girls and boys in parts of north India as an intolerant and bigoted society refuses to accept any violation of its rigid code of decorum, especially when it comes to women. The two teenage girls who were shot dead last week by a cousin in Noida for daring to run away to meet their boyfriends are the latest victims of honour killings, a euphemism for doing away with anyone seen as spoiling the family's reputation. Many such killings are happening with regularity in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. These are socially sanctioned by caste panchayats and carried out by mobs with the connivance of family members.

Bizarre child-burying Hindu ceremony in India
CNN:
Indian police have charged 80 people for burying children alive in an ancient Hindu ceremony known as "the festival of pits."
The ceremony, in which children - some less than a year old - are buried alive briefly and then dug up, happened on Monday in southern Tamil Nadu state, The Asian Age reported on Thursday.

Every two years, parents who have vowed to bury their first-born if they are blessed with a child, take part in the Kuzhimattru Thiru Vizha ceremony.
The children are drugged to make them unconscious and placed in shallow "graves" in temple courtyards.
The pits are covered with leaves and dirt and the children are pulled out after Hindu priests chant a brief prayer - lasting up to a minute.

In what has got to be on of the most vile and disturbing things ever put to print, a man in eastern India was arrested for his unconventional and downright insane method of curing the common cold in children.
50-year old Jamun Yadav, who considers himself to be a demigod of the Hindu faith, believes he can channel and transfer divine energy through his feet, which has lead to him standing on the necks and throats of young children suffering from your average run-of-the-mill cold.
When asked about them, the guru claimed that he was merely speaking for God, and as such needs no other defense.
It serves as a grim reminder of the dangerous religious traditions observed by many Hindus in India, many of which are done so for the health of their children. One such ritual involves throwing infants off of a fifty foot tower, a tradition thought to bring good health and luck to the child throughout his or her life.
The children are tossed from the tower onto a tightly stretched sheet below, where they are then handed to their mothers. This bizarre and dangerous ritual has been practiced for 500 years.

If the loss of ONE guy that few have heard of is such a 'cataclysmic blow', it makes you wonder how dangerous the "organization" really is.

As much as different US presidents like to say how different they are, they all share a common love: They love to kill people Americans never heard of before, and then tell them to be grateful for saving them from such awful people.

You cant defeat the jihadis until you deal with the swamp monster that inbreeds nearby, named pakistan. We can kill any number of number 2s; the pakistanis would be happy to provide another bunch of number 2s for us to kill. But it will probably never end. Dispensible cannon fodder for jihad is cheap and plentiful there. That's the reason nations like pakistan can continue to calibrate the jihad while we keep culling them one by one. Just drain the swamp and be done with it, once and for all.

The bottom line is that the only way to have peace in Afghanistan and lessen regional tension is split India into pieces. It has become too big to govern or create any value for western countries or even for its own population. We have invested a lot of resources in India over the past two decades and given a lot of aid to prop it up. There has been no investment on this return. Instead India has squandered all the resources in building nuclear weapons while poverty remains rampant in the country. We need to revisit our relationship with India. American taxpayers will not tolerate this anymore. We need to take care of our own populace going forward. We cannot be exporting jobs to India or giving it financial or technical handouts.

Dude, US has never given financial, technical or moral support to India. No US tax money has been dispensed to India.
Either you're confusing India with Pakistan or you're simply an idiot and don't even know the geography or politics of the region.
It's best for you to keep your mouth colosed and your mind open However, you have you have your minds closed and mouth open. Oh, you must be Paki!

June 6, 2012 at 8:44 am |

I have heard enough

Peaches, who are you kidding. India has been living on the kindness of the American taxpayers for the past three decades. Foreign Direct Investment, Jobs, Transfer of Technology nuclear and missile, Supply chain expertise, Retail, Food, Defense and Security support to counter Pakistan, China et al, Support and protection from Al Qaeda and talibans and on and on. We have also had Israel and South Korea help protect you. As we speak we have sent our Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to bring you within our protective fold. Your army has been scared stiff and hiding in barracks and bunkers running away from Talibans and Chinese. Who are you kidding? You need to look in the mirror and say Thank You to the American people before they get fed up with you and dump you to dark ages that you came from.

Al Queda's number 2 has now beaten Lobster Fisherman as the world's most dangerous job. Seriously, how many times have we killed their "number 2"? You'd think eventually they'd run out of fanatics who'd want the job.

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CNN's Security Clearance examines national and global security, terrorism and intelligence, as well as the economic, military, political and diplomatic effects of it around the globe, with contributions from CNN's national security team in Washington and CNN journalists around the world.